It might be packed with unspeakably wild antics, but this full-throttle drama is clever, astonishingly written TV – which is on its way to being one of the greatest shows of all time
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The coolest thing I am able to say at the kind of parties where people discuss TV is: “I’ve been an Industry guy since the first episode”. Looking back at that pilot, first broadcast in 2020, it feels far away and distant now in the shadow of season three’s outrageously huge finale: five baby-chick graduates all trying their best in their entry-level job interviews, the credits blazing with the searing but baffling-in-hindsight “Directed by: Lena Dunham”, most of the scenes actually being in the office. Go back and watch that episode now, I say at parties that I am fully aware I am being boring at, and it feels like a completely different show – I don’t think there was a single scene in season three when Harper looked at a computer, for instance – but because of how fast and how smartly Industry has evolved, that change doesn’t feel jarring. It started good and has only gotten better and bigger. With HBO renewing for season four before Kit Harington had even got peed on in season three, it can only get more daring and enormous.
This is the season that everyone has caught up with my visionary zeal for the show, and it has been reflected (a sad admission) in my Reddit homepage algorithm. Industry has a fanbase now, a vociferous one, one that makes Yasmin and Rob edits and speculates about what moves Harper will make next and asks questions like, “Quick one, struggling to understand the show: what’s money?”. This is the year Industry has suffered from (but not bowed under the weight of) Succession comparisons, which for my money were slightly more apt in season two than now, seeing as it has evolved so completely into its own thing. But you can squint and see where the line between them might be drawn: like Succession, Industry is on HBO; like Succession, Industry paints ghoulish characters in vivid new colours (this year’s addition of Harington’s Henry Muck was a particularly interesting new texture of eco-when-it-suits-him posh boy: knows exactly what to say in gilded rooms and how to shake hands with tycoons but has a fragile chip in his ego that will never really be therapied away); like Succession, Industry has people whose thirst for success has bled into every aspect of their lives; like Succession, Industry has an incredible sideline in audacious I-can’t-believe-they-typed-that-and-I-can’t-believe-HBO-allowed-it-and-I-can’t-believe-they-convinced-an-actor-to-say-it! dialogue. I’m not allowed to repeat any of my favourite lines but search for the mouthwash comment from the fantastic Rishi-centred episode White Mischief, and you’ll see what I mean.
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